Turner, firefighters association president clash over pay...

1of 5Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton debated Proposition B, the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority, at St. Johns United Methodist Church on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018.Photo: Jasper Scherer

2of 5Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton debated Proposition B, the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority, at St. Johns United Methodist Church on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018.Photo: Jasper Scherer

3of 5Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton debated Proposition B, the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority, at St. Johns United Methodist Church on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018.Photo: Jasper Scherer

4of 5Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton debated Proposition B, the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority, at St. Johns United Methodist Church on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018.Photo: Jasper Scherer

5of 5Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton debated Proposition B, the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority, at St. Johns United Methodist Church on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018.Photo: Jasper Scherer

After months of trading barbs from a distance, Mayor Sylvester Turner and the head of Houston’s firefighters’ union met in a vigorous but civil debate Saturday, displaying their fundamental differences over just about everything related to the November ballot referendum that would grant firefighters pay “parity” with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority.

The dispute revolves around a divisive question: If the measure known as Proposition B passes, can the city afford it? If anything, the debate at St. John’s United Methodist Church between Turner and Houston Professional Fire Firefighters Association President Marty Lancton revealed how irreconcilable the opposing views on that question truly are.

From Turner’s perspective, Houston firefighters deserve to receive better pay, but not to the extent that their raises “bankrupt the city,” as he claimed Proposition B would do by mandating 29 percent raises for firefighters, at a cost of than $100 million a year.

To Lancton, the city has balanced its budget on the backs of firefighters to the point that the department’s rank-and-file members are struggling to make ends meet, with salaries far lower than those of firefighters in other Texas cities.

“What Houston firefighters seek is fair, competitive pay. Because of low pay, many Houston-trained firefighters are leaving for other departments,” Lancton said. “Our pay is so low that starting firefighters, supporting families, can even qualify for government assistance. We've asked the city for competitive pay for nearly a decade. The city has repeatedly rejected our efforts to reach an acceptable contract agreement.”

The city has created a “phony, manufactured budget crisis,” Lancton said, when it can indeed afford to increase firefighter pay to match that of police officers.

To that point, moderator and Chronicle opinion editor Lisa Falkenberg posed a question to Lancton that spawned one of the debate’s notable moments: You have questioned Turner’s claim that Prop B would cost $98 million, she said, “but surely to know it's wrong, you must have done the research to know the right figure. What is it?”

“You know, that’s a great question for you to ask the city,” Lancton said, going on to point out that Turner’s cost estimate has fluctuated at times — and that Proposition B “does not specify anything about a percentage pay raise.”

“If you look at the language within the proposition and you see anywhere in there about a 25 percent pay raise, I will stop this debate right now,” Lancton said.

Turner firing back: “You can't ask for pay parity without knowing what the cost is. Please bear in mind, this is not my referendum. This is Marty's referendum. If you are asking the voters to vote for this, you ought to know what the cost of your petition is.”

“I don't have a finance department that works for me, that I hire,” Lancton said after the debate, explaining why the union has not offered its own estimate. He again cast doubt on the city’s estimates, arguing they contain assumptions about certain costs.

City Controller Chris Brown admitted as much to City Council on Wednesday while discussing his estimate that the parity measure would cost about $85 million a year. Brown called the cost “unsustainable.”

Just before the hourlong debate came to an end, Lancton and Turner were each asked to “draw a picture” of what would happen if the item passes.

Lancton, who has previously suggested that he is open to reaching pay parity over multiple years, answered first: “If it passes, we do not expect anything to happen overnight. What we are telling the public … is that we are willing to work with the administration, work with anybody that wants to sit down and focus on how we can make sure that we can implement a system that is equitable and fair.”

Turner again jumped on Lancton's claim, saying in essence that if Prop B passes, the law would compel changes to happen overnight.

“If the voters vote this in, you are mandating the city, you are mandating me to enforce it and to implement it based on the timeline, and that is immediate,” Turner said. “You cannot then negotiate the people's vote.”

Lancton, on this matter and when asked why the union has not accepted Turner’s standing 9.5 percent pay raise offer, returned to the state’s local government code. He suggested the code prevents the union from accepting a new contract now. And Lancton pointed to a provision that says the code “preempts all contrary local ordinances,” which he says would theoretically allow the city and firefighters to reach a more agreeable collective bargaining contract to supersede Prop B.

“If you’re taking the position that collective bargaining can trump the election on Nov. 6, then why are we doing this election in the first place?” Turner asked Lancton. “If collective bargaining trumps, there is no reason to be putting the public through this divisive process. You cannot have it both ways.”

Lancton stood firm, telling Turner that “if the city wants to equally value the service and sacrifice of the Houston firefighters, you can come up with a way to phase in anything that the mayor and the city and the firefighters want to do.”

“But the firefighters need to have somebody sitting across the table that shows up and that's willing to work with them,” he added, alluding to his prior claims that Turner skipped out on the bargaining process. Turner later called that claim a “red herring.”

“You have your negotiating teams,” he said after the debate. “They come, they get their marching orders and their instructions from me. It's the same in every process.”

The debate, hosted by the Harris County Democratic Party, played out in fairly civil terms, a notable development given the rancorous dialogue that has surrounded the issue so far. Turner and Lancton did allude at times to the divisiveness Proposition B has created, with Turner criticizing Lancton for making the process “contentious” by putting “employee management decisions into the public domain.”

“You're putting employees against one another. It is not good public policy,” Turner said.

Lancton at one point jabbed at Turner for not attending negotiations, then posting in recent months about Prop B on social media.

“If the decisions don't come at a negotiating table but they continue to come over Twitter, that's not good leadership,” Lancton said. “That's not going to get a resolution.”

Turner has argued for months that the city cannot afford Proposition B, warning it would force hundreds of worker layoffs, including firefighters and police, in part because the city operates under a voter-imposed revenue cap.

Brown’s $85 million estimate does not account for the 7 percent raise granted to police officers in a two-year contract approved by City Council Wednesday. The deal, which goes into effect in July 2019, means police will have received raises of more than 30 percent since 2011, while firefighters have received just a 3 percent raise.

In Houston, a first-year firefighter currently earns about $40,000, or $12,000 less than firefighters in San Antonio and about $20,000 less than both starting firefighters and police in Dallas. Pay for a Houston police officer who has completed a six-month probationary period is about $55,000.

Turner typically accounts for the disparity by focusing on the fire union’s rejection of previous offers that would have otherwise made the gap less severe; union officials say they turned down a 4 percent raise under former mayor Annise Parker because it was undercut by health premium increases, while Turner’s 9.5 percent raise was offered in bad faith after collective bargaining talks had broken down.

But the mayor took a new approach to explain the disparity on Saturday, pointing to firefighters’ cumulative pay raise of about 34 percent between 2005 to 2010, while police took in a 15 percent raise during that time.

Jasper covers City Hall, local politics and breaking news for the Houston Chronicle through the Hearst Journalism Fellowship program. He previously covered Bexar County and local politics for the San Antonio Express-News. Jasper graduated from Northwestern University in 2017 with degrees in journalism and political science. He has interned for the Tampa Bay Times, Washington Post and Fortune magazine.